December 12, 2016-- Sea Cliff was a stage on Sunday, December 4 for the Civic Association's second annual Scrooge Stroll. The roving rendering of Dickens’ beloved Victorian era holiday ghost story took audience members on a trip through the Village’s Business district, with homes, storefronts and other sites along the way serving as scenes visited by the novella’s protagonist as he is transformed from the ill-tempered miser to an incarnation of Christmas cheer and generosity.

The performance was directed by Fred Stroppel and the story adapted for the streets of Sea Cliff by Dan DiPietro. Nearly two dozen residents performed, with Mr. Stroppel playing the role of Charles Dickens narrating, and Mr. DiPietro the deliverer of that dismissive classic catchphrase “bah humbug.”

Opening at Centennial Park (Scrooge and Marley’s Office), adjacent to city hall, where Scrooge grudgingly assents to Bob Cratchet’s request to have Christmas Day off, and continuing on for another 16 scenes at various locations, the parade of actors and spectators numbered more than 100, with onlookers joining the caravan as it passed by.

The Scrooge Stroll was the brainchild of Sea Cliff resident and Civic Association member Patrice Kaider, who had seen a similar staging of A Christmas Carolin Port Washington.

Once again, resident Christine Hughes designed the costumes.

“‘It was the best of times- it was the worst of times’- as Charles Dickens has said, but for us in the Sea Cliff Civic Association this was surely the best of times- as we presented our holiday gift to the Village- the Scrooge Stroll,” said Ann DiPietro, President of the Sea Cliff Civic Association. “With a cast of twenty, costumed in 1840's garb and led by our director extraordinaire Fred Stroppel, the Scrooge Stroll once again ranks number one in a year filled with many, many great Civic Association events.”